Star Wars: The Force Awakens villains revealed and unmasked

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May the fourth be with us and all that jazz. In celebration of Star Wars Day, Vanity Fair has unleashed the first look at its upcoming Annie Leibovitz photo spread and story about JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Teasing the possibility that the movie might include a easter egg reference to the prequels by hiding Jar Jar Binx’s skeleton somewhere in frame, the Vanity Fair preview piece includes the usual Force Awakens promise that this Star Wars movie will be a commitment to bringing practical effects back to the universe and that it’s a movie being made by fans for fans.

This will be really cool in the actual magazine, on shelves May 12.

All is well and good, but the photos and the captions for the photos ended up giving us some new official dispatches from inside JJ Abrams’ Disney mystery box.

Who needs some webpage-viewing music?

Right off the bat, first photo: new information. This isn’t only the first official photo of Adam Driver on the set of Star Wars, it’s the first time we know for sure that he’ll be playing the red cross-guard-lightsaber-wielding Kylo Ren.

Note the outfits.

This is also the first time Adam Driver has been revealed as part of The First Order (what the bad guys controlling the Stormtroopers are called now post-Empire). He’s leading two Snowtroopers through some ice planet, probably the same one in his Entertainment Weekly card debut from the first teaser trailer.

Here’s the first look at Lupita N’yongo (12 Years A Slave) working for JJ Abrams. Up until now we knew she was in the movie, but no one had seen her in costume, not even the weird drone spies the production had to deal with this time around.

“A small galaxy’s worth of tracking dots affixed to Lupita Nyong’o’s face allowed artists at Industrial Light & Magic to transform her into the C.G.I. character Maz Kanata.”

This picture reveals that N’yongo will be playing a motion-capture character, and its caption says she’s named Maz Kanata. Then, hours later, Vanity Fair got to confirm another actresses’ role, debuting the character name Captain Phasma for the chrome-colored Stormtrooper seen in the second teaser trailer. They also confirmed that she will be played by Game of Thrones actress Gwendoline Christie, though she has that helmet on in both the photo and the second teaser.

Gwendoline Christie as Captan Phasma of the First Order.

The helmet that will launch 1,000 cosplays.

Also on tap, but not entirely new information: a nice look at Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) hanging out by his new X-wing.

“Are you coming with me to Target or what, mom?”

And Rey (Daisy Ridley) on a speeder with some locals on the new desert planet of Jakku.

“No, Daisy, you’re going that way.” — JJ Abrams

It’s pretty cool to get this much new information about a movie coming out December 18, especially after we got a download of new footage to talk about during the constantly-streaming Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim recently. Unlike JJ Abrams previous Star-movie attempt, Star Trek Into Darkness, it seems we’re going to have a much better idea at what this movie has in store for us, and maybe — just maybe — we aren’t being Kahn’d.